* * * * *

I was lying awake in my attic and I heard a clock below strike six. It was
already broad daylight, and people had begun to go up and down the stairs.
By the door where the wall of the room was papered with old numbers of the
_Morgenbladet_, I could distinguish clearly a notice from the
Director of Lighthouses, and a little to the left of that an inflated
advertisement of Fabian Olsens' new-baked bread.

The instant I opened my eyes I began, from sheer force of habit, to think
if I had anything to rejoice over that day. I had been somewhat hard-up
lately, and one after the other of my belongings had been taken to my
"Uncle." I had grown nervous and irritable. A few times I had kept my bed
for the day with vertigo. Now and then, when luck had favoured me, I had
managed to get five shillings for a feuilleton from some newspaper or
other.

It grew lighter and lighter, and I took to reading the advertisements near
the door. I could even make out the grinning lean letters of "winding-
sheets to be had at Miss Andersen's" on the right of it. That occupied me
for a long while. I heard the clock below strike eight as I got up and put
on my clothes.

I opened the window and looked out. From where I was standing I had a view
of a clothes, line and an open field. Farther away lay the ruins of a
burnt-out smithy, which some labourers were busy clearing away. I leant
with my elbows resting on the window-frame and gazed into open space. It
promised to be a clear day--autumn, that tender, cool time of the year,
when all things change their colour, and die, had come to us. The
ever-increasing noise in the streets lured me out. The bare room, the